Second Half of September 2018

Locally, we've been pounded by rain this September, and it continues.  Reservoirs and rivers are very high.  As in...Saylorville Lake is currently 32 feet ABOVE NORMAL POOL.  Pretty unusual for this late in the season.  And the Des Moines River below Saylorville is flowing at 17,000 CFS, when typically at this time of year it flows around 1,000 CFS.

At least the local ponds remain fishable.  And the cooler weather we've been having seems to be killing off the algae blooms.  There still are some, but much less than, say, a month ago.

This is a chunky 28" Channel Catfish that hit a flyrod bass popper.  Estimated weight of 10.6 lbs.  Great surprise, fun battle!

Caught a smaller catfish and a carp during a flyfishing lunch hour:

For bass, I've tried mainly flyrod bass poppers and subsurface Gamechangers.  Both have caught fish, but the bass seem to be responding to the topwaters better at the moment.  The largest bass recently have been an 18" and a 17" fish:

I've been tying up more Gamechangers...I'm getting better results as I gain experience.

I had a bit of excitement recently... I was bringing in a small 11" bass, when a huge fish tried catching it.  I'm guessing it was a BIG bass.  I tried throwing on a bigger Gamechanger that looked like the bass, but did not get any strikes on it.

Mid-October 2017

Flyfishing for bass has steadily slowed, although I still see them chasing baitfish.  I just can't get them to hit what I'm throwing at them.  Could be more my problem than theirs.

I'm getting a few crappies, but not as many as I think I should be:

Once in awhile, I'll get a Pumkinseed Sunfish:

Or Hybrid Sunfish:

Some bluegills, but again....not as many as I think I should be getting.

Its getting later in the year, so I'm not sure how long I can expect to get Common Carp and Channel Catfish....but I have caught some while flyfishing during my lunch hours recently.

...and another picture of the same 21" catfish....I couldn't decide which picture I liked better:

Verified...Redear Sunfish!

I mentioned in this post from a week or so ago:
http://www.fishndave.blogspot.com/2015/06/19-largemouth-bass-on-bluegill-topwater.html
...that I suspected there may be a few Redear Sunfish in a certain nearby pond.  I finally got back to try and catch one of these spooky fish, and DID!  I caught just one...a 9-incher...and they are indeed Redears.  I've only seen maybe 6 nesting only in a certain area. I suspect they may have been stocked from elsewhere...and at this point I'm not even sure if there are any females in the pond or not...so it may not be a reproducing population.  Because of that end, I will keep this pond under my hat.

I've been flyfishing the local public ponds in my city, starting in 2006 (so, 10 years now!).  It was only about 3 years ago that I discovered a series of connected ponds have Pumpkinseed Sunfish in them.  They are beautiful fish not commonly found in the area lakes and reservoirs, so that was a really nice surprise to find a population of them locally.  I always hoped I'd find some Redear Sunfish too....they get big and fight hard, but can be difficult to entice to strike a fly, except when they are nesting.  There are some of these in lakes within an hour or so drive of where I live, but I usually prefer to spend my time fishing rather than driving so I generally fish close to home.  I say all this just as background to help understand why I think finding them in a nearby pond is SO AWESOME!

Anyway...so that started off my day on a high note.  Since most of the fish that were on nests scattered when I approached, I put an indicator above a microjig to fish the far side of the weedline to see if I could get a female Redear or one of the males that had just vacated the shallows.  I didn't get anymore Redears, but the indicator dropped down, and set the hook, and a nice fish shot out for the middle of the pond.  I couldn't stop it on that first run!  Strong fish!  Turned out to be a 20" FAT Channel Catfish...my 2nd Channel Cat on a fly within 5 days.

I also caught a couple bass on poppers, and found some pretty nice bluegills.

After leaving this pond, I picked up my buddy Jay, and we fished Saylorville Lake.  Using spinning gear, I caught a White Bass, Jay caught at least 3 more plus a Freshwater Drum.  But most of the time we were flyfishing for carp.  We saw plenty of them, but they pretty much ignored everything we showed them.  I dropped a fly down in front of one that was feeding in some heavy flooded vegetation.  The carp dropped down to the fly, I set the hook, and it took off for open water.  My excitement was short-lived...it became unhooked in about 3 seconds.  Bummer!

And then in the evening, my buddy Chad sends me a message asking where I'm going to fish that evening.  It had been a long day out in the sun already... but its tough to resist a fishing invitation!  So, back out I went.  Chad flyfished poppers for bass, so I flyfished for bluegills with a yellow Boa Yarn Leech.  I did well, and so did Chad.  In addition to bass, he managed a Bluegill on that large popper!  I ended up catching 4 bass along with the bluegills.

It had been a very enjoyable day of fishing!

Red Rock Spillway, 7-26-2013

After not doing particularly well with kayaking/catching fish on Blue Heron on Wednesday, my buddy Jay and I went below Red Rock on Thursday (7/25/2013).

We started on the west side of the dam, and caught a few white bass, wipers, and drum.

Then I saw busts on the east side, so we drove all the way around to the other side of the river.  The fish were still busting shad on the surface when we got there.  After a successful cast or two with spinning gear, I decided it was time to try out the 7wt combo I just bought from my friend Chad (http://iowaflyfisher.webs.com/).

I used a Clouser Deep Minnow, and hammered fish for about 1.5 hours.  Nice white bass (up to 16"), Wipers (the action was so fast, I only bothered to measure one, and it might not have been the biggest one..but it was 18.5"), and even a Drum or two.

Here's a few pics ( I wish I'd taken more...but I was having too much fun!):

This was one of the smallest Wipers of the day.  Why didn't I take more pictures of the BIGGER ones?

I finally switched back to spinning gear because I was getting worn out casting/catching so many fish, and some folks with a much different idea of personal space and fishing etiquette decided to stand just a rod length away from me and cast wherever I would cast.  I kept catching fish for another hour or so, then the action finally died.

I saw quite a few gar, but thYe would disappear quickly, so I never really got serious about trying to catch one...even though I really WANTED to catch one.  But I was having too much fun with the Wipers!  

Early Season Catfish Plan

I love it when a plan actually works like I hope it will.
Its been a couple weeks since the ice finally melted off the local ponds/lakes.  We've had a few warm days over the past week, finally.  Last night and this morning, we got our first decent RAIN of the season.  The rainstorms didn't last long, but the rain came down hard when it did.
I thought...hey, the runoff should bring some much needed water into the local ponds.  One fish that really likes water flowing into a pond is Channel Catfish.
So...my hope was to try and catch some catfish on flies during my lunch hour today.  I had the pond and the spot picked out in my mind.
Admittedly, the deck was somewhat stacked against me...There USED to be some large catfish in this pond, but I had not even SEEN a catfish in this particular pond during the past 3 years.  And...catfish LOVE warm water, and the local ponds are still pretty cold.  Add to that this storm front is bringing cold weather back.  They've even put possible SNOW in the forecast two days from now!
Sometimes, catfish can be extremely picky about what they will strike.  Sometimes they'll hit anything.

Today...well...Although I was dreaming of catching a catfish, I was flyfishing for crappies and bluegills like I usually would.  The area of the pond I had decided to target did have a trickle of water running in, was very muddy, and the water in the pond was high enough to cause some current from its outflow.

I used a chartreuse microjig @ 18" below an indicator.
I missed some lazy strikes.  The first solid hookup with a fish turned out to be...a Channel Catfish!!!  Hooray!!  At 14"-15" range, it was probably the smallest catfish I've ever caught in this pond.  But it looked very healthy.

I was hoping I was onto something...but it could VERY easily have been a fluke.  Maybe a dozen casts later, the indicator sank again.  Fish on!  And...  Another catfish!!!

It was roughly the same size as the first...so I'm guessing they are the same year-class of fish...and may have either been spawned in the pond, or stocked by the City or other interested parties.  Regardless, I was VERY happy to find some catfish in this pond again, and catch them on my fly rod.

Well...that was it for catfish, in the short time I had available.  I did miss a few more strikes, and landed two more fish.
One was this nice 11" Crappie:

And the other was this NICE 8" Green Sunfish...which had just a HUGE belly on it:

All things considered, I was pretty excited about today's lunchtime flyfishing excursion.  :)

2012 Fishing Summary – Year In Review

As of December 12, 2012…I’m calling it “a year” as far as fishing goes.  With the weather (ice on the lakes) and family commitments between now and the end of the calendar year, I don’t foresee me doing any more fishing in 2012.

And what a year this has been!!  The ice melted away quickly and the temperatures wasted little time in heating up.  The Lower 48 States experienced the hottest first half of the year on record…and darn close to the record for hottest year ever.  With the heat came very little rain, so lakes and river levels were extremely low, in fact many area rivers (such as the Skunk River in Ames) dried to the point of having no measurable flow, Saylorville Lake continues to drop several feet below normal pool (the USACE has to release a minimum amount of water from the lake, which this year happens to be more than is coming in!), and even Big Creek lake is at least 6’ low and dropping due to low flows coming into the lake and a leaking valve on an outlet pipe that isn’t getting fixed.

These conditions made for interesting and unusual fishing circumstances.  For me, fishing was better for much of the year.  I’ve keep a Fishing Log each year since the beginning of 2006.  I set a personal goal of catching 1,000 fish each year.  I had “record months” in March, April, August, October, and November!  In just my best two months (November & April), I totaled 981 fish!  Conversely, my worst 3 months (January, December and February) resulted from only 10 fishing trips total, and 116 fish caught total.  This is typical for winter-time in Iowa.  In December, lakes are often frozen over, but the ice isn’t thick enough to fish on.  In February/March, the ice usually is melting away and again is not safe to fish on.  In January the ice is usually safe, but it takes longer to set up for ice-fishing, so I usually don’t go during my lunch hour, and of course that time of year it is dark by the time I get off work.  That leaves weekends, and those often find me busy with family.  So, I consider any Winter fishing I’m able to do to be a bonus.

I will say I spent an inordinate amount of time chasing such difficult (with a fly rod) species as Grass Carp, Channel Catfish, Common Carp, and Buffalo.  These aren’t high-number species.  I didn’t land any Grass Carp this year, but I had about a half-dozen hooked, which was much better than last year.

I added 5 species to my “Fly Rod Life List”, bringing my total Fly Rod Species list to 28.  The new species this year were Yellow Bass, Yellow Bullhead, Redear Sunfish, Smallmouth Buffalo, and Freshwater Drum.  Too bad Crayfish isn’t a real fish…I caught one of those on a fly this year, too!  J

Here’s some of the “raw numbers”.

Days Fished:  166 (not a record)

Fishing Trips: 211 (I consider it a separate “trip” if I visit multiple bodies of water in the same day, or fish during my lunch hour, then again in the evening (for example).)…(not a record)

Hours Fished: 336 (not a record)

Average Fishing Day Duration: 2 Hours

Average Fishing Trip Duration: 1.6 Hours

Fish Caught: 3,112 (NEW RECORD! This beat my previous record of 2,626 by a substantial margin…486!)

Species: 21

Fly Rod Species: 18

Fly Rod Trips: 190 (NEW RECORD!  This is 90% of my overall fishing trips, @92% of my open-water fishing trips)

Fly Rod Fish Caught: 2,846 (NEW RECORD!)  This works out to an average of 15 Fish per trip (using a fly rod), or 9.4 fish/ hour, or 6.4 minutes between fish.  Statistics geek!  J

Each year it is interesting to see how many fish of each species I catch, and how those ratios change from year to year.  Bluegills and Crappies are what I fish for most, so those will probably always be my top 2 species.  Lets review the top 11 species from this year:

Species                                                            No. Caught

Bluegill                                                            1,341 (New Record!)

Crappie (White and Black)                             776

Rainbow Trout                                                318 (New Record!)

Largemouth Bass                                            236

Sunfish (Green and Hybrid)                           165

White Bass                                                      144

Smallmouth Bass                                            51 (New Record!)

Common Carp                                                 24 (New Record!)

Channel Catfish                                              13

Wiper (Hybrid)                                               12

Yellow Bass                                                    11 (New Record!)

Although the numbers were extremely few, I did set new Records for Redear Sunfish (3) and Smallmouth Buffalo (2).

I definitely caught some nice fish, with approximately 34 fish over 20” long.  I tied my biggest Fly Rod Largemouth Bass with a 19-incher.  I landed 10 Channel Catfish between 21”-27” (nearly all of these were on flyfishing gear/flies), and 23 Carp over 20”.  Longest fish of the year was a 31.5” Common Carp.  "Best Fish" might be the 14.5" White Crappie I caught on a fly rod during my lunch hour.  It qualified for an Iowa Master Angler Award.

I had two 100-fish days, and 1 days with 6 species caught.  I fished with 13 different folks this year.  I fished 30 different waters, 8 of which were completely new to me.

There you have it.  The numbers have been crunched!  I’m looking forward to seeing what 2013 has in store for fishing.  Best of luck to you! J

Lunchtime Flyfishing Report, 12-4-2012

50 degrees when I left the office for lunch...and 58 when I got back! Ahhh, December in Iowa! 
Now, keep in mind all the local ponds were 100% ice-covered for about 5 days about a week-and-a-half ago. Then the ice melted off again...but the water is THAT cold!

I went flyfishing, of course. Despite the warm air temps, those fish are getting extremely sluggish. I missed quite a few soft strikes. The first first fish that decided to let me hook it was a crappie. It came in like a wooden plank. The other fish fought better, but that first one was a good indication of the fish's activity level right now.

I ended up catching 3 Crappies and 4 Bluegills. The biggest crappie was this 12.5-incher:

All on a microjig under an indicator.

Flyfishing in December...in central Iowa!!!

It isn't often we get to flyfish in December, here in central Iowa!  I flyfished a nearby lake from Noon to 4:30pm on Saturday, December 1.  Action was very slow.

The ones that did strike were still very aggressive about it and fought well.  I managed to land 12 Rainbow Trout.  A guy using spinning gear stopped to talk for a bit... Said he'd caught 6. I didn't see any of those get caught, however.  He was interested in my flyfishing, and said he'd bought a fly rod, but was sort of intimidated by it.  He thought he might bring out the next day and give it a try.

I tried a lot of different flies, but kept coming back to the one that really worked... The "Chili Pepper".

Here's some pics:

This next one was bizarre, in that it was a really dark color, lots of purple.  Was this just a melanistic Rainbow Trout, or spawning colors, or....?  Ever seen one like this?

Flyfishing Report, 11/20 & 11/21/2012

11/20/2012


I took the day off work and fly fished Lake Petocka this morning.  22 Rainbows.  Now I've caught 12% of those trout.  

Many like this one were caught on a Chili Pepper fly pattern.

I left decent action there to fish the trout stocking at Ada Hayden at noon.  The DNR guy said he counted 95 anglers there!  It was chaos.  I was practically bumping elbows with people on both sides ( I was there first...they crowded me).  I caught 5 fairly quickly and decided it wasn't fun anymore, so I talked with the DNR guy for awhile.

Today's fishies put me over 3,000 fish for the year for the first time EVER!


---------------------------
11/21/2012

I took the day off, and Dale had the day off as well, so we agreed to do some fly fishing for trout again.  I suggested we visit lake Petocka.

Dale arrived at 7am.  By the time I got there at 8am, Dale had already caught 8 Rainbows.  We gave up 2 hours later.  I had caught 7 trout(including 2 on my first 2 casts! This gives me 12.5% or 1/8 of the trout stocked here so far!).  Dale had not caught any more, and between us we had covered pretty much the entire perimeter of the lake.  The fish activity died.

I asked Dale if he wanted to try Ada Hayden lake.  He was game.  We got there and wind was howling out of the South, waves pounding the north shoreline.  We started fishing there.  A dozen others were also fishing there.  We saw one trout caught.  We started walking/ fishing our way around the north lake in a counterclockwise direction.  At the halfway point, we hadn't caught a single fish....and Dale brought out the venison sticks and cherry Cokes.  That really hit the spot!

Re-energized, we continued our circuit of the lake.  At about the 4/5ths point, we finally found trout.  Lots of them.  Dale got on a pod and immediately started catching fish.  I got off to a slower start.  Dale was the first to 10, and 20, and 30, and 40.  I caught and passed him at 43.  We finally called it quits at 3pm.  My final tally at Ada Hayden was 62 Rainbows, while Dale ended on 50.  What started out looking like a "skunk" ended up very satisfying.  Between us, we'd caught 5% of the stocked trout in about 2 hours!

Many times there would be 3, 4, or 5 anglers fishing the same pods of fish.  Dale and I with fly gear out-caught the spin fishermen by a very substantial margin.  Several of them mentioned that next time they weren't going to be leaving their fly rods at home!

While there, I heard interesting stories of some good Wiper fishing at Ada Hayden this past summer.

This was the sunrise looking out my front door on 11/24/2012.